To give my son milkshake in the morning and before bed?

[PinkyPie80]

My son is 14 months old and since 12 months has gone off milk completely. After 2 months of continuously offering morning and night milk I've given up. Not just because it's a waste of time but also a waste of milk. I am very aware of the HV recommendations of how much milk a baby of his age should be having.

Before bed last night as a treat I gave him a cup of Yop strawberry flavoured milkshake. He devoured the lot. In the morning, I offered him another cup and the same he drank the lot.

I did use good old google and even though Yop is slightly higher in sugar than what is recommended it is supposed to be good for your stomach. He has cheese and yoghurts throughout the day for calcium.

DH thinks he shouldn't be having it every day but I think if he's getting the calcium that way it's better than nothing? Opinions?

What would have been sensible is mixing the milkshake into regular milk half and half, if you were desperate. It would still have been a lot more appetising. It's going to be hard to go back without gradually letting it down, now, though.

There are other ways of getting that pint of milk into him - cheese, yoghurt, rice pud, cream and so on.

My DD would not drink cows milk and she wouldn't have it on cereal either and like Stars we carried on with the formula.

DD is now 21 and has always managed very well just eating cheese and yogurts.

Ripe banana, cup of milk, drops of vanilla essence. They gobble that down and it has no added sugar.

Why bother if he's having cheese and yoghurt? You can add butter to stuff as well, and cream. Pasta with cheese sauce made with butter and cream would be great!

None of my kids ever drink milk apart from in cereal. I didn't either as a child. It's not mandatory. Human beings need calcium but they don't 'need' to drink milk.

Cheese/home made yoghurt is far healthier and better for his teeth too. Even home made fruit milkshakes have too much sugar to have twice a day.

PS Like Poocatcher this was never even something I thought about when my boys were little but it crops up every couple of months on here.

Yop don't make milkshakes do they? I thought they did yoghurt drinks?

(I appreciate that isn't entirely the point)

None of mine had milk as a drink at this age. Their dairy requirements are easy to meet without drinking milk if they don't like it.

I definitely wouldn't give the flavoured milk drinks. They are worse than a can of coke in terms of sugar content even if they do happen to contain some calcium.

You can make yoghurt shake by blending a yoghurt with some milk.

The cheese and yoghurts are enough! There's nothing remotely healthy at all about one of those Yop things and they really need to be kept as a treat.

Yeah Yop isn't milkshake; it's yoghurt drink. Don't mix it with milk! Plain yoghurt if anything. I love Yop but it's sugary yoghurty sugar, it doesn't really taste like milk or yoghurt.

If he'll drink home made, that'd be ideal.

Yep the cheese etc counts towards the milk they need. One of mine went off milk around that age so I started giving either plain yoghurt or porridge for supper. An advantage was they started sleeping through a lot later as it was more filling. You could mix some fruit puree in if you wanted as well.